52-54 Main Street

1262/0/10001

26-JUL-02

WALTON UPON TRENT MAIN STREET 52-54

II

Hall and cross wing, later three cottages and now two houses.

No. 52 and former no. 50, now Dripping Pan Cottage. C19 cottages containing the remains of C16 or earlier timber-framed house. Rendered and painted front wall, slate roof. Two storeys, two bays, entrance on the right of bay 1. Large ridge stack centre, the roof ridge higher over the right bay. C20 door in an inserted opening, window far left in an earlier doorway; two and three light windows with small panes, plastic frames. Interior not inspected but recorded in 1998 when substantial remains of a cruck truss and timber framing in the rear wall [large panels] and west wall [close studded with mid rail] was seen. The main room has an inglenook fireplace with remains of a brick oven, and a large spine beam; the east room has an inserted late C17 fireplace.

No. 54, Cobweb Cottage, left. Cross wing of the late medieval house: C15/16 timber framing, C17 inglenook fireplace with brick chimney, brick infill and repair mid/late C18, alterations and additions late C20, rendered. Stone plinth and padstones, light red brick in random bond with flared headers used to pick out date and initials: 'RT' and '17..' flanking ground and first floor windows, south gable. This wall has ground and first floor window with segmental header arch, C20 wooden frames. Stone or Coadestone plaque in gable with carved initials 'RT'. Late C20 repair to the gable wall included packing vertical cracks at the corners which follow the form of timber corner posts. Remaining walls and interior not inspected but detailed records made in 1998 provide the following information: timber wall plates and bressumers, substantial remains of the timber-framed cross wall, with posts, bressumer, studs, and braces to tie beam, and principal rafters. The inglenook fireplace built against the south side has a bressumer beam with rush-light burn marks. The north and south rooms have a massive ceiling beam with deep chamfers and wide joists with chisel-cut assembly marks. The jointing of the joists to the beam is with unpegged barefaced soffit tenons, a medieval form. Interpreted as a storeyed cross wing of the earlier hall, now no. 52. It may have been heated by a lateral stone chimney stack. The later development of the group. The brick infill and casing dates from the C18 and probably at the same date the range was divided into two, along the division between hall and cross wing. The building was extended as a row of single-room cottages with rear outshuts, possibly to house servants at the Hall opposite, as there is a local tradition of the dripping pan brought home from the Hall. Rendered from the C19; render removed from part in the late C20.